Edwards shows the pace in Qatar test day two

As it happened yesterday, Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi set the
pace in the second day of activity at the Losail International Circuit
of Doha, Qatar for the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix
(MotoGP).
Colin...

As it happened yesterday, Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi set the
pace in the second day of activity at the Losail International Circuit
of Doha, Qatar for the FIM Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix
(MotoGP).

Colin Edwards.

Photo by Yamaha Team.

Colin Edwards kept his exemplary pre-season form by topping the
unofficial time-sheets once again today, with teammate Valentino Rossi
hot on his heels.

The Yamaha Factory Team pairing continue to forge ahead with the
development of their 800cc Yamahas and their hard work is reaping
rewards, with both riders feeling confident about the impending season.

Edwards' best lap of the day, an outstanding time of 1'56.296 set in
the morning session, was over a second under the current 990cc lap
record. Meanwhile Rossi bettered his time from yesterday with a lap of
1.56.537, despite running into a few set-up problems which he will look
to iron-out tomorrow.

"Today was impressive! We got our second-choice front tyre from Michelin
and it was instantly better than the third-choice one we had yesterday,
it gave me a lot more confidence in the front-end. We made some big
changes to the setting last night and we're now in a different realm,
close to what Valentino was running yesterday. It's basically just
something that works well on a flat track with no bumps and it felt
really good. We made a small change to the rear shock and then we were
just testing tyres for the rest of the day", commented Edwards.

Despite being second for the team in the 1-2 speed charts again, Rossi
knows there`s a lot to keep working on: "Today we ran into a few
problems which we need to work on, but anyway this is expected when
you're getting faster and faster and it's much better that we find the
problems now than in the race! Again we need to work to improve the
stability of the bike under braking and this is a very delicate thing
because we don't want to sacrifice the agility of our bike. We need
to find the right balance. We tried some more tyres for Michelin and
today we didn't find anything so great in this area, but we made some
decisions about what to try for our long run tomorrow", expressed the
Italian ace.

Behind the Yamaha duo appeared Dani Pedrosa setting third best time
with 1'56.712 on his Repsol Honda. The Spaniard was another rider to
spearhead the development of Michelin's new front rubber, and clocked
his quickest time towards the end of the afternoon session. The second
RC212V in the top six was that of fellow Spaniard Carlos Checa, who put
in the most laps of any rider as part of a race simulation.

Casey Stoner proved again that the Marlboro Ducati is in good shape by
clocking the best fifth time 1'56.040, right ahead of John Hopkins,
sixth with the Rizla Suzuki.

The current World Champion, Nicky Hayden, had a hard day as he suffered
a small crash on the opening run-out at Losail. He was back on the bike
immediately, eager to put in as many laps as possible on the new 800cc
machine.

Tomorrow will be the last day of activity in Doha, where on March 10th
will be the scenary for the opening round of the season.